Madrid  - More than 180 north African would-be immigrants have reached Spain in less than 24 hours, media reports Monday quoted officials as saying.

The migrants arrived on board 17 boats in the south-eastern provinces of Almeria, Murcia and Alicante.

They followed a considerable decline in the numbers of migrants arriving from Africa, which went down by half to about 4,800 in the first half of 2009.

Analysts attribute the decline mainly to Spain's economic crisis and stronger frontier controls.  dpa